British education reform involves a new national curriculum; competition and parental choice; and business-funded schools.
Expanding the national curriculum impacts teacher workload.
Parents oppose comparing school performance, longer school days, a 5-term year, and compulsory vocational training.
Teachers resist "whole-class" vice "child-centered" teaching, and more practical training.
Students will be streamed by subject ability.
Parents want smaller class sizes, extended student loans, and better government-funded nursery schools.
U.S. education reform mirrors the U.K.'s.
Issues differ because states, not federal institutions, control education policy.
National testing will compare public and private schools and states against "world standards".
Critics charge national testing kills diversity, inhibits teachers; and burdens children.
Federal subsidies enable school choice within states.
With no new federal dollars, economic segregation is exacerbated as money leaves poorer schools.
Japan balances regulating private schools with deregulating public schools.
Entrance testing is equalitarian, but richer students get tutoring.
Universities must value creativity over memorization, so lower schools will.
A 24,000-to-1 student and researcher exchange ratio between Japan and America, underpins a $50-billion dollar trade deficit, because U.S. businesses devalue Japanese studies.
Hong Kong's schools teach in English -- associated with career success.
English and Cantonese standards, and subject knowledge, are all slipping.
Children learn better in Cantonese (or Mandarin) or English, according to language proficiency.
Singapore's well-funded schools must shift from engineering to information technologies and management; relieve pressures on students; and allow flexibility between streams.
Brazil's educational mismanagement, corruption and politic abuse divert money, which produces illiteracy.
Teachers boycott qualification exams.
